The latest increases – brought in at the beginning of the New Year – mean that rail fares have gone up by an astonishing 27 percent since the Tories came to power, rising three times faster than wages.

At the same time local commuters face daily chaos on our trains – with cancellations, overcrowding and delays now routine.   Speaking on Tuesday morning Clive said “We need a new approach which will keep fares down by bringing the railways back into public ownership, putting passengers before private profit.”

“In January, the Secretary of State for Transport promised the then Mayor of London that Southeastern’s rail services would transfer to Transport for London when the franchise came up for renewal.  We have already seen how good a job TfL has done on the Overground Line and I am sure they would dramatically improve our rail services.  However, we now know that the minister wrote to Boris Johnson in 2013 saying he would not allow this to go ahead “because I would like to keep suburban rail services out of the clutches of any future Labour mayor”.

“I have raised this repeatedly in Parliament demanding that the Minister be held to account for putting political partisanship above sorting out the chaos on our trains.  It is time we said ‘enough is enough’ and demand that the Tories keep their promise to allow TfL to take responsibility for our trains.”

If you support Clive’s campaign to force the Government to give our local rail franchise to TfL please sign our petition here.